Posted on 09/14/2005 7:26:38 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
AS THE WAR between the United States and Al Qaeda enters its fifth year, the nature of the armed, transnational Islamist group's campaign remains misunderstood. With the conflict viewed largely as an open-and-shut matter of good versus evil, nonmilitary engagement with Al Qaeda is depicted as improper and unnecessary.
Yet developing a strategy for the next phase of the global response to Al Qaeda requires understanding the enemy -- something Western analysts have systematically failed to do. Sept. 11 was not an unprovoked, gratuitous act. It was a military operation researched and planned since at least 1996 and conducted by a trained commando in the context of a war that had twice been declared officially and publicly. The operation targeted two military locations and a civilian facility regarded as the symbol of US economic and financial power. The assault was the culmination of a larger campaign, which forecast impact, planned for the enemy's reaction, and was designed to gain the tactical upper hand.
Overwhelmingly centered on the martial aspects of the conflict, scholars and policymakers have been too focused on Al Qaeda's ''irrationality," ''fundamentalism," and ''hatred" -- and these conceptions continue to color key analyses. The sway of such explanations is particularly surprising in the face of nonambiguous statements made by Al Qaeda as to the main reasons for its war on the United States. These have been offered consistently since 1996, notably in the August 1996 and February 1998 declarations of war and the November 2002 and October 2004 justifications for its continuation.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
This guy is crackers. It would figure that he would be affiliated with that gleaming example of tolerance, Harvard University. In the Harvard Yard, no outrage is too small, and no dumb idea is too big.
Mark for later deportation?
"Sept. 11 was not an unprovoked, gratuitous act."
Reminds me of Ed Asner when he said Kuwait was taunting Saddam with all their oil and wealth and Saddam was compelled to invade them to help his people.
They hate the West. Why are they here ?
I wish he'd just be honest and tell us that we should just relax and let Islam take over the world. Convert or die. Don't fight it.
The thought of people leaping from the tops of the Twin Towers is a typical example of dialog emanating from Al Queda. You would think that would be enough, but...apparently not.
This will appease the radical Muslims and their religion, they will be forever happy, and there will never be any more terrorism or evil men in the world, right?
Come again? Incredible!
This guy is a perfect example of why we need to ratchet up the was on terror and blow them all off the face of the Earth. If he cannot see that the attacks against innocent civilians, simply living their lives and going to work was completely inexcusable then he just does not get it. There is NOTHING we as a nation have done that can excuse 9-11. Not one thing. End of story.
Perhaps if we hadn't said such mean things about Hitler he wouldn't have gassed as many Jews.
Well said.
Chamberlain talked and talked and talked. Hitler acted. Millions died.
Negotiation will resemble the Clintonian President in "Independence Day" asking the capture alien what they want, with the answer beig "Just Die".
Don't you know it takes years and years of military training and an advanced degree from the Naval War College in Newport before one can even hope to cut a flight attendant's throat with a utility knife? Come now, it must be true, since Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou the Academic insists it's true.
I guess this lunatic didn't bother to ask himself if Al-Qaeda is supposedly acting rationally, why it didn't bother to negotiate with us before launching strikes. Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a group of crazed, fanatical killers who want to turn the clock back to the seventh century. There is no negotiating with them. I don't want to negotiate with them, I want to negate them.
Boston is like a Cest pool that slug politicians come crawling out of to terrorize the rest of the country... LOL!
Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad
It's AMAZING that liberals think everything can be solved by discussions and talking. Try talking to a hard-core liberal and they won't listen to a thing you're trying to tell them, no matter how much sense it makes!
They expect lunatics and terrorists to listen to reason when they don't want to hear anything that goes against what's already engrained in their beady little minds!
Liberal: La, la, laaaa... I can't heaarrrr you!!
"..the global response to Al Qaeda requires understanding the enemy..."
True. But that's eomthing the Boston Globe obviously fails to do.
As the President in that hokey movie "Indpendence Day" found out when he asked the alien what they wanted humans to do, its response was "Die".
The same can be said for Al Quaida. Its goal is the destruction of the west, western civilization, and everything we worked 2,000 years to accomplish.
And NOTHING will deter them - except hot lead and cold steel and, perhaps, hemp ropes and tall gallows.
DELENDA EST SYRIA
On the contrary, that is PRECISELY what this is. With minimal materiel and infrastructure, the raggies managed to murder 3,000 of the "enemy" with negligible losses to themselves. Tactically, 9/11 was an overwhelming success for the savages.
The point people miss is that if "warfare" in the raggie world consists of murdering civilians, then they have no high ground when the US murders THEIR civilians. If the Trade Center is a military target, then so are mosques. If commuter buses and trains are fair game, then so are madrassas, "safe houses," and cars driving along Iraqi highways. And if civilians are the enemy, then it doesn't matter if the animals at Guantanamo were wearing uniforms or not; they are still prisoners of war.
The raggies defined the rules of engagement. They can't very well balk when we engage them under those same rules.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.